There needs to be made a distinction between the herpes outbreak and the herpes virus itself. The outbreak of blisters you get around your mouth or genitalia is a symptom of the virus, the outbreak lasts 1-3 weeks and than it goes away the virus never goes away, it may not cause another outbreak again but you still have it.

There is no cure for the virus, only treatments for its symptoms: the blisters. So all the “miracle treatments” out there that claim or implay that they cure herpes are just plain deceits. Read carefully, the decent ones claim that you will be outbreak free not virus free. Yes, it is possible to be outbreak free for many years, or have extremely rare outbreaks like 1 every several years, but the virus will always be there hidden in the cells of the nervous system in a dormant state. During active infections, some of the hidden virus “wakes up” to do its dirty work, but while any virus remains hidden it’s impossible for treatment to lead to a full herpes cure.

When will we see a cure for herpes?

Bryan Cullen, the director at the Center for Virology at Duke University is hopeful that a cure for herpes could come within 10 years.

1. Stay outbreak free or strive for extremely rare outbreaks

2. Keep an eye on the new research regarding herpes

Here are some of the most recent news, as of october 2012
There are at least 2 companies that are starting trials for a herpes vaccine this year (2012)

a) T-cell Vaccines Could Treat Elusive Diseases
Genocea Biosciences promise to start clinical trials on its lead candidate in the third quarter of 2012, the Cambridge company announced Wednesday the start of a Phase 1/2a clinical study on an investigational herpes vaccine, GEN-003. GEN-003 is different from prior investigational vaccines for herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), said Hetherington. Rather than stimulating antibodies, as traditional vaccines do, GEN-003 is designed to stimulate T-cells to fight HSV-2, using a protein identified by Genocea to target the infection, as well as an adjuvant, called Matrix M2, for which the company has the exclusive license to use in this vaccine.
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2012/08/13/daily32-Genocea-heads-to-clinic-with-herpes-vaccine.html

b) Coridon gears up for herpes vaccine trial
Prospects for a herpes cure are closer with Coridon signing a deal covering technology used in its experimental herpes vaccine, which is set to enter human trials this year. Coridon’s DNA-based herpes vaccine uses the NTC8485 expression vector. This vaccine was recently shown to be 100% effective in protecting animals from herpes simplex virus 2 during a pre-clinical efficacy study.
http://www.lifescientist.com.au/article/421886/coridon_gears_up_herpes_vaccine_trial/OTHER NEWSc) Another possibility to eradicate the HSV-1 variant is being pursued by a team at Duke University. By figuring out how to switch all copies of the virus in the host from latency to their active stage at the same time, rather than the way the virus copies normally stagger their activity stage, leaving some dormant somewhere at all times, it is thought that conventional anti-viral drugs can kill the entire virus population completely, since they can no longer hide in the nerve cells. One class of drugs called antagomir could serve this purpose. These are chemically engineered oligonucleotides or short segments of RNA, that can be made to mirror their target genetic material, namely herpes microRNAs. They could be engineered to attach and thus ‘silence’ the microRNA, thus rendering the virus incapable to keep latent in their host.[99] Professor Cullen believes a drug could be developed to block the microRNA whose job it is to suppress HSV-1 into latency.

d) Antiviral Drugs May Slow Alzheimer’s Progression
Antiviral drugs used to target the herpes virus could be effective at slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a new study shows.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017102557.htm

e) New Way to Target Viruses Could Make Antiviral Drugs More Effective
Scientists have developed a new way to target viruses which could increase the effectiveness of antiviral drugs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100719162649.htm

f) Tansy May Be Used to Treat Herpes, Study Suggests
A folk remedy may be an effective treatment for the sexually transmitted disease herpes according to Dr Solomon Habtemariam from the University of Greenwich’s School of Science and Professor Francisco Parra at the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110414160942.htmg) Drug Against AIDS Could Be Effective Against Herpes virus
Scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) headed by the coordinator of the Structural and Computational Biology Programme, Miquel Coll, have published a new study that demonstrates that raltegravir, the drug approved in 2007 for the treatment of AIDS that is sold by Merck under the name Isentress, cancels the function of an essential protein for the replication of one kind of herpes virus. This study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), is the first step towards the development of a drug against the entire herpesvirus family.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100923081859.htm

h) Map of Herpes Virus Protein Suggests a New Drug Therapy
The mechanism by which a herpes virus invades cells has remained a mystery to scientists seeking to thwart this family of viruses. New research funded by the National Institutes of Health and published online in advance of print in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology reveals the unusual structure of the protein complex that allows a herpes virus to invade cells. This detailed map of a key piece of the herpes virus “cell-entry machinery” gives scientists a new target for antiviral drugs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706112603.htm

i) Vaginal Treatment May Prevent Herpes
“One of the attractive features of the compound we developed is that it creates in the tissue a state that’s resistant to infection, even if applied up to a week before sexual exposure,” Harvard researcher Judy Lieberman, PhD, says in a news release. “This aspect has a real practicality to it. If we can reproduce these results in people, this could have a powerful impact on preventing transmission.”
http://www.webmd.com/genital-herpes/news/20090121/vaginal-herpes-prevents-herpes

j) Vaginal Gel Blocks HIV, Herpes
The gel is PRO 2000, now in large-scale clinical tests. It’s hoped that the odorless, colorless product — what scientists call a vaginal microbicide — will slow the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
http://www.webmd.com/genital-herpes/news/20050225/vaginal-gel-blocks-hiv-herpes

3. Join a clinical trial

If you can no longer wait for all these companies to finish their research and officially launch a product on the market you can join a clinical trial.

A clinical study involves research using human volunteers (also called participants) that is intended to add to medical knowledge. There are two main types of clinical studies: clinical trials and observational studies.

In a clinical trial (also called an interventional study), participants receive specific interventions: medical products, such as drugs or devices; procedures; or changes to participants’ behavior, for example, diet.

When a new product or approach is being studied, it is not usually known whether it will be helpful, harmful, or no different than available alternatives (including no intervention). The investigators try to determine the safety and efficacy of the intervention by measuring certain outcomes in the participants.
Note: Some people who are not eligible to participate in a clinical trial may be able to get experimental drugs or devices outside of a clinical trial through an Expanded Access Program.

Each federally supported or conducted clinical study and each study of a drug, biological product, or medical device regulated by FDA must be reviewed, approved, and monitored by an institutional review board (IRB). An IRB is made up of physicians, researchers, and members of the community. Its role is to make sure that the study is ethical and the rights and welfare of participants are protected. This includes making sure that research risks are minimized and are reasonable in relation to any potential benefits, among other things. The IRB also reviews the informed consent document.
Read more about clinical trials: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/about-studies/learn
Join a recruiting clinical trial http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/AdvSearch.aspx or here http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/search/advanced